Birthright

these floors original?”
    “Yes.” As Mrs. Spencer glanced down, Lana signaled Doug to join her at the fireplace. “Yellow pine.”
    “I don’t suppose the rugs go with the house. They’re extraordinary.”
    “No. They don’t. If you’d like to come this way.” She walked through a set of open pocket doors into a cozily feminine sitting room. “I use this as a little reading room.”
    “I don’t know how you can bear to sell. But I suppose your daughter’s grown and moved out, you’d be happier with something smaller.”
    “Different, in any case.”
    “Are you retired, Dorothy?”
    There was a flicker of confusion, of suspicion as she turned back to Lana. “Yes, for some time now.”
    “And did you pass your interest in the business to your daughter? The way you passed your name. Do they call you Dory, too?”
    She stiffened and saw out of the corner of her eye that Doug blocked the hallway door while Lana stood by the pocket doors. “Dot,” she said after a moment. “Who are you?”
    “I’m Lana Campbell, Callie Dunbrook’s attorney. This is Douglas Cullen, her brother. Jessica Cullen’s brother.”
    “How many babies did you help sell?” Doug demanded. “How many families did you destroy?”
    “I don’t know who you are or what you’re talking about. I want you out of my house. If you don’t leave immediately, I’ll call the police.”
    Doug stepped to the side, picked up the phone. “Be my guest. We’ll all have a nice, long talk.”
    She snatched the phone, spun away to the far side of the room. “Get me the police. Yes, it’s an emergency. You have some nerve, coming into my home this way,” she snapped. Then she jerked up her chin. “Yes, I want to report abreak-in. There’s a man and woman in my house, refusing to leave. Yes, they’re threatening me, and they’ve made upsetting statements about my daughter. That’s right. Please hurry.”
    She clicked the phone off.
    “You didn’t give them your name or address.” Lana started forward, threw up her hands as Dorothy heaved the phone at her.
    “Nice save,” Doug commented when she made a fumbling catch inches before it smacked into her face. He took both Dorothy’s arms, pushed her into a chair. “Hit redial.”
    “Already did.”
    It rang twice before she heard a breathless voice say, “Mom?”
    She hung up, cursed, then dragged her address book out of her bag. “She called her daughter. Damn it, I should’ve memorized Callie’s cell number. Here.” She punched numbers quickly.
    “Dunbrook.”
    “Callie, it’s—”
    “Jesus, Lana, will you quit?”
    “Just listen. It’s Dory. We found Dorothy Spencer. We found Carlyle’s secretary. Dory’s her daughter.”
    “No mistake?”
    “None. Dot Spencer just called her. She knows.”
    “All right. I’ll call you back.”
    “She’ll be okay,” Lana told Doug as she disconnected. “She knows who and what to look for now. She won’t get away,” she added as she walked toward Dorothy. “We’ll find her, just as we found you.”
    “You don’t know my daughter.”
    “Unfortunately, we do. She’s a murderer.”
    “That’s a lie.” Dorothy bared her teeth.
    “You know better. Whatever you and Carlyle did—you, him, Barbara Halloway, Henry Simpson—whatever you did, you didn’t resort to murder. But she did.”
    “Whatever Dory’s done was to protect herself, and me. Her father.”
    “Carlyle was her father?” Doug asked.
    Dorothy sat back as if perfectly at ease, but her righthand continued to open and close. “Don’t know everything, do you?”
    “Enough to turn you over to the FBI.”
    “Please.” With a careless shrug, Dorothy crossed her legs. “I was just a lowly secretary, and one blindly in love with a powerful man. A much older man. How could I know what he was doing? And if you ever prove he was, you’ll have a harder time proving I was involved.”
    “Barbara and Henry Simpson can implicate you. They’re happy to.” Doug smiled to add punch to the lie. “Once they were promised immunity, they had no problem dragging you in.”
    “That’s not possible. They’re in Mex—” She broke off, tightened her lips.
    “Talk to them lately?” Lana made herself comfortable in the opposing chair. “They were picked up yesterday, and they’re already being very cooperative. They’re already building a case against you. We’re only here now because of Doug’s personal interest. We wanted to talk to you before you were